CAPITULO IV: CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES
ANEXO 2. PROYECTO DE INVESTIGACION
Having briefly looked at the ‘shape’ of contemporary theodicy, with its focus on morally sufficient reasons, we can see the impetus behind the desire to provide such reasons (which seek to alleviate the why question as it focuses on the occurrence of specific evils), and also the way that
141 Ibid., 124.
insufficient reasons seem impotent to provide satisfaction within that framework. There are, however, other ways of considering the problem of evil question. One way of framing this discussion, famously associated with Leibniz, is the best-of-all-possible-worlds argument.
In essence, the argument from evil can be reformulated in an effort to
contradict the notion that this is the most optimal world, which if combined with the idea that God must create the best, may contradict rational theism. Leibniz formulates the best-of-all-possible-worlds argument well when he writes:
One may say that as soon as God has decreed to create something there is a struggle between all the possibles, all of them laying claim to existence, and that those which, being united, produce the most reality, most perfection, most significance carry the day. It is true that all this struggle can only be ideal, that is to say, it can only be a conflict of reasons in the most perfect understanding which cannot but act in the most perfect way, and consequently to choose the best.143
Following Leibniz, if we assume “the best” to include aesthetic values as well as moral ones, it seems likely that the role of the aesthetic will factor well into any theodicy in this vein. If the most optimal world includes the best combination of happiness, goodness, and beauty, then any argument for this world’s optimality will include consideration of all these factors. In
The Monadology, Leibniz argues that there is perfect relationship between all the parts of reality (at basis, simple substances, the eponymous ‘monads’), by which the universe is provided with “the greatest possible variety, together with the greatest order that may be” and through this means the universe has “obtained the greatest possible perfection.”144
Throughout his various theological works, Leibniz reflects on the optimality of the world by reference to beauty. In Theodicy, he writes, “Every time we see such a work of God [the heavens and the rest of the universe], we find
143 Leibniz, Theodicy, 252.
it so perfect that we must wonder at the contrivance and the beauty
thereof ”.145 Though we cannot conceive of the totality of creation we may see in isolated works such as a plant, animal or human, “a certain point of perfection”, and therefore “the wonderful contrivance of the author.”146 Here we see an area where aesthetic values can obviously contribute, in that, given a best world scenario, their absence might be considered a challenge to theism. Allen Carlson, in Aesthetics and the Environment imagines an
analogous “problem of ugliness”:
Since an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-moral deity would
presumably have perfect aesthetic judgment, how is he or she to be reconciled with the existence of ugliness or more specific negative aesthetic qualities in the world that he or she has created?147
One can imagine this sort of consideration weighing more heavily given a best world framework. One might combine an argument using morally sufficient reasons explaining God’s allowance of evil, and then “top it off ” with aesthetic arguments for the world’s harmonious perfection. Thus an aesthetic apologetic could become a regular part of the problem of evil argument. Is this the place for aesthetics that we have been seeking? On the whole it seems that the larger question of the world’s general goodness admits more easily of aesthetic considerations than the question of God’s permission of specific evils. Thus one could argue that by shifting focus from a framework of morally sufficient reasons to an emphasis on highlighting the optimal value of the world, one can better make room for the aesthetic theme. But this move may be overly hasty. Recent work on the concept of a best possible world has shown the idea to be incoherent, and otherwise generally unhelpful.
145 Leibniz, Theodicy, 215. 146 Ibid.
147 Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (New
3.1. Could There Be a Best Possible World?
Though Leibniz, as quoted above, seems convinced that God could weigh all the possibilities and emerge with a single, perfect world, there is good reason to doubt Leibniz’s position. In evaluating the coherence of the idea of “optimality”, Bruce Reichenbach imagines two ways that we might conceive of the best possible world.
The first way is in terms of the world’s richness and variety. Following Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas and others, Leibniz imagines the world as an immensely diverse plenitude of forms, ascending from the lowest to the highest. Yet Reichenbach notes that even given the widely diverse forms of this world, interstitial gaps are always present. He writes, “Between various life forms, whether actual or possible, there is an infinite variety of other life forms.”148 Hence, “regarding the richness of the actual or any possible world, for any degree of richness n, there could be n+1 richness.”149 A second way of construing the world’s “optimality” would be in the degree that it exhibited some positive state of affairs, whether it be happiness, or beauty, or pleasure, or morality. But, as before, no upper limit could clearly be proposed. For any amount of beauty or happiness n, one could always imagine n+1. Reichenbach concludes, “Thus, there could be no best possible world, since for any world which we would name there would always be another which was more optimific. Again, the notion of best possible world proves to be meaningless.”150 Following Reichenbach I am inclined to agree that, whether one construes the world’s optimality in terms of a maximum amount of variety, or a maximum amount of value, there can be no conceivable upper limit to such value, and thus no truly “best” possible world.
148 Bruce Reichenbach, Evil and a Good God (NY: Fordham UP, 1982), 127.
149 Ibid. 150 Ibid, 128.
There are further problems with best of all possible worlds scenarios,
because the notion that there could be no best possible world, if adhered to without abandoning the notion that God must create the best world, creates an internal contradiction. If we retain a Leibnizian notion of God as the creator of only the best, then this world, less than the best, is not created by God. This is clearly an unattractive option, and so we must be led to
assume that God need not, according to His perfection, create the best world.
3.2. Need God Create the Best Possible World?
In his article, “Must God Create the Best?”, Robert Adams argues that “even if there is a best among possible worlds [which he doubts], God could create another instead of it, and still be perfectly good.”151 Central to Adams argument is the assumption that if major aspects which contribute to one’s personhood were radically different, one would, in fact, be a different person. Leaning on Adams’ understanding, then, though Philip Tallon might have had a far more felicitous life in some better world (perhaps I would be an athletic astronaut and also a fashion model), this other Philip Tallon would not be me. Thus I am not wronged by not being an incredibly famous astronaut. Also key to Adams’ case is the idea that God does not have obligations to uncreated possible people. Thus world- famous astronaut Philip Tallon is not wronged by God not creating him. Given these two assumptions, Adams proposes three characteristics that a world which a good God would create must possess:
(1) None of the individual creatures in it would exist in the best of all possible worlds.
151 Robert M. Adams, “Must God Create the Best”, in The Problem of Evil: A Reader, ed. Michael
(2) None of the creatures in it has a life which is so miserable on the whole that it would be better for that creature if it had never existed. (3) Every individual creature in the world is at least as happy on the whole as it would have been in any other possible world in which it could have existed.152
Adams summarizes:
It seems obvious that if God creates such a world He does not thereby wrong any of the creatures in it, and does not thereby treat any of them with less than perfect kindness. For none of them would have benefited by His creating any other world instead.153
The best-possible-world discussion can be riddling, but I think that Adams’ point is sufficiently clear now, in that God could be justified in creating a good (but not necessarily maximally good) world (such as one where everyone’s lives are on-the-whole positive), and that this could be done without wronging any created (or uncreated) person.154 A position such as Adams’ is obviously helpful in resolving the apparent contradictions
generated by the best world scenario. It shows that Christians and other theists need not be worried by the conflict between the somewhat intuitive notion that God must create the best world, together with the worrisome thought that the best world is impossible to create, by offering a coherent account of a good (but not optimal) world.
However, in revising our criteria for the kind of world that a good God could create, it seems likely that aesthetic values will play a far less necessary role in arguing for the minimal goodness of the world. Where Leibniz
152 Robert M. Adams, “Must God Create the Best”, in The Problem of Evil: A Reader, ed. Michael
Peterson (Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1992), 275.
153 Ibid, 278.
154 This should, of course, be disambiguated from Whitney’s idea that all anyone can be guaranteed
is minimal value, which I take to be insufficient to guarantee that anyone’s life is on the whole good, because it seems that we experience more than minimal disvalue.
sought to find perfection in all things, including the harmony of the nature, one who argues that this world possesses a minimum level of goodness– such as described in Adams–will feel much less need to discover harmony in every aspect of creation.155 This is not to say that the aesthetic values
cannot be integrated into an argument for the minimally-necessary goodness of a world, merely that a minimal-goodness scenario doesn’t seem to
mandate appeal to these values in the way that a best-world scenario
obviously does.156 However, just as the role of aesthetic value in pointing to the world’s optimality is taken away, so is the strength of the atheistic
argument from evil. God’s aesthetic judgment could be “reconciled with the existence of ugliness or more specific negative aesthetic qualities in the world” by simply arguing that bits of ugliness, a diffuse blandness, or other negative aesthetic values do not necessitate that anyone’s life will be on the whole negative rather than positive.157
I therefore argue that we will need to leave behind best-of-all-possible- worlds scenarios, despite their prima facie compatibility with aesthetic values. However, I suggest that Robert Adams’ schema of the minimal goodness of the world might lend itself to the inclusion of aesthetic criteria, though it by no means necessitates this.
Marilyn Adams, appropriately enough, has built on Robert Adams’ schema in her theodicy, by arguing that certain aesthetic values can help humans to have an on-the-whole positive life. By shifting to an individualistic focus for aesthetic categories, Marilyn Adams recasts the argument in a way which can
155 Robert M. Adams, “Must God Create the Best”, in The Problem of Evil: A Reader, ed. Michael
Peterson (Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1992), 275.
156 Marilyn Adams, in Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, seems to be using this as her
paradigm for theodicy when she argues that in order to show how horrors are compossible with the existence of God, it must be shown how each person’s life can be a great good to them, on the whole. The power of horrors, in fact, is that they threaten the possibility that anyone’s life could be a great good to them on the whole. Further, Adams uses aesthetic values as part of her argument to show that God can guarantee that everyone’s life is great good to them on the whole. I lay this out in more detail in Chapter 5.
be very helpful for this study. Though I will discuss Adams’ use of aesthetic benefits more fully in Chapter 5, for the moment, I will mention that Adams invokes the beatific vision as a powerful aesthetic benefit which can
contribute to the ultimate well-being of individuals. The beatific vision, though not exclusively an aesthetic phenomenon, would possess great value as a sight to behold, and thus enrich the afterlives of those who suffer, as indicated by St Paul in Romans. Adams here opens up new possibilities for aesthetic value in the theodicy discussion, though I will not discuss her work yet, as I think that a more helpful model for aesthetic interaction with
theodicy is laid out by Eleonore Stump, which I will discuss in the next section.
3.4. Summary.
In this section, and the last section I have laid out two ‘paradigms’ for theodicy within which aesthetic criteria have played a role in the past. Regarding morally sufficient reasons, we can see why theodicists may have been resistant to incorporating these values: 1) aesthetic values do not easily function as morally sufficient reasons for God’s permission of evil, and 2) in order to avoid guilt-by-association with process theodicy, many mainstream theodicists no doubt stay away from aesthetics.
Regarding best-of-all-possible-world scenarios, we can see quite easily how aesthetic criteria (or the lack thereof) have played and could play a role in arguing for (against) the optimality of the world. However, given the
problematic nature of best world scenarios, we can see how aesthetic criteria can come to play next to no role at all in arguing for the minimally-necessary goodness of the world, except insofar as aesthetic values contribute to the ultimate well-being of an individual.